Rejoice in God's Grace!!

1 Corinthians 15:9-11
"For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed."

During this week, this verse has stood out to me. I am learning that only by His grace did I come to Him and only by His grace can I do anything to further the Kingdom for His Glory. I continue to learn that I need him because I cannot do anything without Him but I want to make sure that I always first rejoice in the grace of salvation that was given to me. John Piper(pastor/author) states about Luke 10:20; "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." He states from a book that:
"But. Let this not be your first joy or your root joy or your indispensable joy. Rather, 'rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven." That is, rejoice that you are enrolled in the redeemed. Rejoice that you will go to heaven when you die. Rejoice that God has written you among the elect. Rejoice that you are saved. This is the greatest thing. Not ministry. But knowing God, seeing God, enjoying God. The greatest thing in the world is to be saved. Because it is being saved to enjoy God forever."

What does this have to do with anything, well for me is that I am reminded by Paul that I am saved by grace and I am who I am by grace so I pray that this grace that has been given to me is not in vain but for the glory of the Lord. I am reminded from Piper that I rejoice first in the grace of my salvation before anything else that the Lord has graciously given to me or to our family. I need to rejoice in the Lord for the grace of salvation first before rejoicing and thinking about things that pertain to different grace given by the Spirit. I might need grace in writing to make sense of my thoughts but these two things stood out to me. by Chris Kollman